


whatever lies will help you rest

by seventhstar



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Angst, Established Relationship, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Reverse Chronology, Widowed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-08-04 08:08:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16343060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhstar/pseuds/seventhstar
Summary: “Yuuuuri.”“What?”“Now that we’re engouged—engooged—engaged, we need rings.”“Oooh.” Yuuri nods seriously. Everything is very serious. He and Viktor are sitting on a bench in Vegas; he is wearing Viktor’s jacket and Viktor is wearing his glasses. He’s not sure why. “I don’t have a ring.”“Why?”“Because.”“Hmm.” Viktor taps his lip. “Okay. I’ll fix this.”





	whatever lies will help you rest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ADreamingSongbird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ADreamingSongbird/gifts).



**_1163_ **

Every morning, Yuuri checks to see if the count has increased.

He makes breakfast in a kitchen that was small before but feels cavernous now, full of mugs that go unused and food that goes uneaten. Six months and Yuuri forgets he no longer has to buy for two. Makkachin whines at the door all evening, every evening, until Yuuri wants to tear his own hair out. He’s not coming home, he wants to scream.

He goes to bed every night with his hand on the pillow beside his own, eyes fixed on the numbers until he falls asleep.

Every morning, before Yuuri opens his eyes, he prays that the count will increase.

But Viktor died on the 1163rd day of their marriage. It never does.

* * *

 

**_1162_ **

Yuuri is on a plane the morning Ice Tiger’s nemesis, Maple King, attacks. It’s supposed to be a routine fight, but Ice Tiger’s equipment malfunctions. Viktor goes to assist him.

Something goes wrong. Later, Yuuri will ask and ask, and no one will be able to adequately explain what happened. Ice Tiger and Maple Lawn are fine; no civilians are injured; the city sustains minimal damage. According to the Society of Supers, the mission is a success.

A piece of debris impales Viktor’s abdomen. No one notices he’s been injured until it’s too late, and too late comes quickly. It was fast, the coroner tells him, the blood loss would have happened in under a minute. They try to tell him nothing could be done.

Viktor wouldn’t have wanted the city destroyed. Yuuri has to tell himself that that night, and all the nights after, and every time he sees a happy couple or a sunny day. How dare they, he thinks, how dare they go on being happy, when in Yuuri’s heart the whole world has gone cold.

* * *

 

**_1003_ **

“To say that for destruction ice…is also great…and would suffice.”

Viktor waggles his eyebrows at Yuuri across the room. When they cook together, they end up in each other’s way, so they take turns. It’s Yuuri’s turn tonight, and so he’s making garlic parmesan pesto mac and cheese while Viktor reclines on the sofa and reads him fragments of poetry.

“Is that Frost?”

“That’s right.”

“When are you going to stop making ice puns?”

“When you stop loving me.”

“So, never?”

Viktor kisses his ring, and Yuuri feels the answering warmth in his own, the metal just tightening around his finger. Metal can’t help but react to Viktor, though he does his best; Yuuri’s ring is in tune with him, hot when he’s happy, cold when he’s sad, tight when he’s lonely. Yuuri brings the ring to his lips, and across the room, hears Viktor sigh.

* * *

 

**_643_ **

Yuuri’s been held captive before, but never like this.

The Madame has trapped him in one of her mirror mazes. It’s an infinite pocket universe, reflecting versions of Yuuri back at him on every side. Some of them he knows: his childhood self chubbier and more innocent, his drunk self singing and stripping, himself in civilian clothes instead of suited up. And then there are the versions he fears: a Yuuri that is a villain, a Yuuri that never became a hero, a Yuuri with no ring on his hand.

And as he goes deeper and deeper into the maze, looking for the way out—the Madame’s mazes have broken by will and heart and nothing more and nothing less—he begins to see other things. Shadows. Flashes of other people, with warped smiles and twisted faces.

Viktor. Viktor, again and again and again, sometimes smiling, sometimes crying, sometimes screaming silent obscenities at him. Yuuri hopes that Viktor isn’t inside one of these, that’s he engaging the Madame in the real world instead.

“Yuuri!”

He shudders. _Keep going,_ he tells himself. _Don’t stop._

“Yuuri, please!”

_It’s an illusion._

“Yuuri!”

_It’s only an illusion!_

“Yuuri, help me!”

And Yuuri breaks. He turns his face towards the mirror where Viktor is banging on the other side of the glass, eyes wild, mouth open. He looks terrified, desperate; he breaks Yuuri’s heart. Yuuri raises a hand to smash the mirror and free him, heedless of the Madame’s rules—

—and sees that that the ring on that Viktor’s hand still reads 0.

* * *

 

**_450_ **

“Yes,” Viktor pants. The sheets are crumpled in his fists; he’s crying. “Yes, Yuuri, please—”

“Yeah,” Yuuri says. He bites at the back of Viktor’s shoulder. “Yeah, just like that.”

Viktor’s so soft, the way he melts under Yuuri’s hands, the way his body slumps against the bed like Yuuri’s fucked every bit of strength out of him and all that’s left is the wanting. His hair is stuck to the back of his head by sweat. There is a perfect bite mark of a bruise on his ass, imprinted on top of the flush from being spanked. Yuuri can see the muscles in Viktor’s backc clench with every thrust, can feel him quivering underneath Yuuri as he moves.

He covers Viktor’s right hand with his own, their fingers laced together, rings clicking. The metal is rippling in time with Yuuri’s hips; Viktor whimpers out something both incoherent and affectionate.

“Don’t ever leave me,” Yuuri says as he fucks Viktor into the mattress.

“I won’t,” Viktor says breathlessly; he hides his face into the covers as he comes.

* * *

 

**_365_ **

“We’ve been married a whole year,” Viktor says.

“A whole year.”

“It’s amazing.”

“Yeah. Amazing.”

Yuuri had had plans for this first anniversary. He’d made dinner reservations. He’d sent Viktor flowers. He’d even bought a new tie.

Instead, the city has been in peril all day, and now, five minutes before midnight, is the first time Yuuri has had more than ten seconds with Viktor all day. They’ve been putting out fires, literal and metaphorical, since dawn. Viktor is covered in soot. Yuuri is coated in slime. They’re both sitting on the floor of their bathroom, trying to work up the strength to shower.

“The sitter said she’d bring Makkachin in the morning.”

“Poor Makka,” Yuuri says.

“Our anniversary is over in four minutes, Yuuri.”

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri says. He pats Viktor’s head, which does nothing but make the soot in his hair sticky. “At least we’re together?” His hand is now kind of stuck to Viktor’s head. “Can you turn the shower on?”

Viktor sighs and waves a hand weakly. The knob turns, and a steady spray of water spatters against the glass. He winces.

Yuuri concentrates until his palm glows and a thin layer of ice has formed. He lays it on Viktor’s ample and burning forehead, and Viktor moans in pleasure.

“I had to rebuild the entire Chulanont Tower,” Viktor says. He tilts his head into Yuuri’s hands like a cat. “Tons and tons of steel. Mm.” He sighs. “They even had me do the wiring. Can you carry me?”

“What, into the shower?”

“Yes.”

“You realize you can fly and I’m just a guy, right?”

“You can control ice.” Viktor must b exhausted,  he doesn’t even correct Yuuri’s use of the word ‘fly’ or start monologuing about how he’s using the metal in his suit to levitate instead.

“Yeah, but I have to lift shit with my normal person muscles.”

“But I love you.”

“Fine.”

Yuuri gets up, somehow, after peeling his hand out of Viktor’s hair. He bends down to pick Viktor up—it’s extremely painful to move—and lifts him, princess style, into his arms. Viktor looks at him with huge eyes as Yuuri steps into the shower.

The hot water is reviving. Viktor, once he’s on his feet, hurries to strip out of his filthy costume. Their ruined supersuits end up on the floor where they were laying. Yuuri wraps his arms around Viktor’s bare waist, though they’re both only slightly cleaner naked than they were clothed.

“Wait,” Viktor says, “wait, we still have thirty seconds—” he seizes Yuuri’s hand.

Yuuri feels a shudder in his ring as Viktor does something to it. He tugs it off and holds it up to the light; there, inside the band, is half a snowflake.

He doesn’t need to see Viktor’s ring to know where the other half is. But Viktor takes off his ring anyway, and they hover midair, pressing together to form—like he and Viktor do—a perfect whole.

* * *

 

**_100_ **

“What is this?”

Yuuri jumps as Viktor slaps the brochure from Maria Dolores that Yuuri was _sure_ he’d thrown away on the table. It lands in Yuuri’s breakfast. He was eating that bacon.

“Look, I—”

“Did you seriously try to buy me an off the rack ring?”

“Do you know how much a ring from Maria Dolores costs?” Yuuri peels the brochure off his plate. The bacon looks fine. He eats it.

“No?” Viktor looks deeply offended that Yuuri even asks.

“Neither do I, because they don’t have them listed anywhere! They just expect you to know!”

“Can’t believe you thought for even a moment I would let you wear a ring I hadn’t made,” Viktor mutters. “Who do you think I am?”

“I just figured, you control metal all day fighting crime, maybe you wanted a break!”

“…you realize my day job involves welding, right?”

“I’m sorry! Anyways, you got to make the rings in the end!”

“That’s because you proposed while we were drunk and you didn’t have any.”

Yuuri leans up to kiss Viktor on the mouth, which seems to pacify him. He pats Viktor’s cheek.

“The rings you made are great,” he promises.

Viktor plays with the strands of Yuuri’s hair, the ones he really should cut but hasn’t. He looks pleased.

* * *

 

**_5_ **

They honeymoon in Spain.

They spend a glorious four days in Barcelona, after a proposal, an engagement that lasted hours, and an elopement. They plan nothing. After the papers are signed and they’ve kissed all the way from the chapel to their hotel room, and after they’re too tired to fuck anymore, Viktor buys two plane tickets and Yuuri finds a hotel with decent room service.

Barcelona is beautiful, but so is Viktor, and Yuuri can’t even pretend to care about the former when the latter is there for him to worship.

“Hey,” he whispers, one night when they’re side by side, drinking cold champagne as the city falls asleep outside. “What’s this on my ring?”

“Hmm?” Viktor rubs his face against Yuuri’s shoulder. “Oh, it’s a five.”

“A five?”

“Because that’s how long we’ve been married.”

“I love it,” Yuuri whispers. “I love you. And you know what?”

“What?” Viktor asks eagerly.

“This number is in Russian and I have no idea what the fuck is says. Can it be in English?”

Viktor takes Yuuri’s hand and kisses it softly where the ring sits on his finger. When he lifts his lips, in the dim orange light Yuuri can see the number carved neatly into his ring where a jewel would be. Days with Viktor are more precious than any jewel, more valuable than gold. He and Viktor hold hands that night, ring against ring.

When Yuuri wakes, his ring has a six on it. It becomes a ritual, every morning, to look it. It becomes a reminder to always be happy to have Viktor at his side.

* * *

 

**_1_ **

“Yuuuuri.”

“What?”

“Now that we’re engouged—engooged—engaged, we need rings.”

“Oooh.” Yuuri nods seriously. Everything is very serious. He and Viktor are sitting on a bench in Vegas; he is wearing Viktor’s jacket and Viktor is wearing his glasses. He’s not sure why. “I don’t have a ring.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Hmm.” Viktor taps his lip. “Okay. I’ll fix this.” Viktor is a hero; he can fix anything. He tries to get something out of his pocket. It takes him several minutes to remember Yuuri has his coat. Having extracted his wallet, Viktor wanders off, leaving Yuuri to wait for him. Yuuri hates waiting.

He drinks the remaining wine in retaliation.

“Okay!” Viktor returns with a cardboard box in hand. “Look. I found a pawn shop.”

He dumps a pile of cheap jewelry into Yuuri’s lap. Later, they will both be amazed that no one noticed, but in this moment, all Yuuri knows is that the mess of earrings and pendants and chains melts into a glob, which ripples until a solid sphere of pure, shining metal is left. Viktor coaxes away a strip of it and winds it with a gesture around Yuuri’s right ring finger. It settles there like a caress.

The second ring Viktor lays in Yuuri’s palm. Yuuri takes Viktor’s hand and carefully slides it onto his finger, stark against the pale skin; he watches as it reforms for the perfect fit.

“There,” Viktor says. “Now I’ll always know where you are?”

“What about me?” Yuuri asks. “How will I know where you are?”

“Well,” Viktor says, with all the gravity of a man who is drunk on vodka and love, “I’ll come find you, no matter what.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Great.” Yuuri leans in to kiss him; his glasses get knocked from Viktor’s face to the ground in his haste. They kiss until a passing policeman firmly suggests they stop. “Let’s get married.”

“That’s the best idea,” Viktor says, beaming so his smile is as bright as the flare off his ring.

**Author's Note:**

> update: 
> 
> kanzaki19 did the math: _1163 equals 3 years 68 days (figuring no leap year)_
> 
> _If we assume Barcelona matches up with the canon GPF dates that would put their whirlwind engagement/elopement on December 11th..._
> 
> _Which means Victor is injured on Valentine's day 3 years later and dies the following day_
> 
> fun fact: i picked those numbers entirely at random

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [a single soul sets his voice singing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16346963) by [ADreamingSongbird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ADreamingSongbird/pseuds/ADreamingSongbird)




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